Ding! You are now free to move about the country

Wednesday was pretty quiet. We were scheduled to have our visa interview at the US Embassay for Maia. Although we have adopted her she is still a Vietnamese citizen at this point and needs a visa to enter the US. We decided to do a little shopping before our appointment and started the day with a little breakfast at Highland Coffee. Maia enjoyed some watermelon. The waitresses there love her and we have yet to make it through a meal without one of them coming up and borrowing her for a while. It still amazes Laurie and I how well these little children adapt to their adoptive parents and still remain extremely social in the process. We knew we had to be out this afternoon, and I stayed in with her to nap while Laurie did a little shopping. She found Maia a cute little elephant with a straw hat. Maia woke up and hugged it right away. She wanted to take it with us to the embassay.

We went with the Schellhorn family and little Emma to the Embassay. This is our last appointment in Hanoi before we are cleared to leave the country. Emma is actually older than Maia. Her birthday is January 15, Maia birth certificate is February 19. Go figure.

We were a little nervous about the interview. Turns out once we were in they processed our form and we paid and waited for our interview. The nice young man called our name and we approached the window. His first question was a dueszy. "Do you swear everything on this form is true to the best of your knowledge?" The second was even worse. "Can you sign here?" He then stated "Come back after 4pm for her Visa, thank you".

Wow! just like that we were done. Maia is ours to bring home, we have permission to let her leave the country and Uncle Sam has given her the ok to come hom to our country.And come home we are.

We left the Embassay, headed over to EVA Airlines to make sure our flight had been changed, got our confirmation. We get to leave on Friday and travel back in time. We leave Taipei at 6pm Friday and arrive in LA at 1:30 pm Friday four hours earlier after spending 11 hours in the air. We have to layover overnight in LA. but land at O'hare around noon on Saturday. After getting our flight straight we headed back to the Hotel to wait for Plan to drop off our daughters visa.

Dinner at Al Fresco's again landed us next to a table with three families who were also adopting. It has been wonderful crossing paths with so many other families going through this wonderful but difficult experience.

It took me 2 hours of rocking to get Maia asleep enough to lie her down in her crib. She was tired, but she had her own dad to take care of her.

Tuesday shopping day

We did a little shopping today. We took a cab to the Big C. Kind of like a Walmart/Kmart. The ground floor was actually a small shopping mall, and the escalator up led to the Big C. It was a pretty big store. We got to put Maia in a shopping car for the first time. She really liked it.Prices were pretty good. It was evident that unlike some high falooting stores like Zinkes, they don't waste money on unnecessary items like ladders for stockers. Dan may want to take notice.I did see an OSHA approved sticker on the cart. We had lunch at Pizza Hut at the Mall and really enjoyed a little Western food. We have visited KFC a few too many times.

Maia got a cute little braclet at the Mall, and her first set of shoes. I had really wanted to get her a pair of these since my friend Becky got some squeeky shoes for her little Grace when they were in China. Sorry the video is sideways, could not figure out how to rotate,and did not have any with the camera going the right way.

I may have to get a pair for myself for work. Everyone at the bank will be able to keep track of me. I will not have to sign in or out, they will know when I am in.We stopped at the artist studio to see how the painting of Maia was comming along. It has a ways to go, but starting to really look nice.

I got Maia's passport today. With her passport in hand we are able to make an appointment at the Clinic for her medical checkup.
We took a cab to lunch at an american place called AL Fresco's. Unfortunately we got into the wrong cab. I noticed the meter spinning way too fast. The trip should be about 15,000 dong, our meter said 215,000 dong. The driver kept saying VIP taxi vip vip. finally we settled on $16 US, about 5 times what it should have been. Oh well, it was fun arguing with him.

After lunch Hyoung from Plan met us to take us to the SOS Clinic for our appointment. We, all the families thought her name was Loan, and called her that until today we found out that is another person at Plan and her name was actually Huong. She is wonderful.

Somehow our appointment got lost in the computer and we were delayed a couple hours.

We found our doctors are not Maia's favorite. The nice French doctor tried his best to work with Maia, but she would not have any of it. She worked herself into such a frenzy she threw up all over me. Then she threw up all over me again. When we finished the exam Laurie asked if he had other kids get this upset he calmly said "no, never like this" I think we are in trouble.

After a nice nap and a long talk with the boys we went out for a quick dinner. Maia had a quick dance with her dad and shared a little dinner with her mom. She continues to get more comfortable with us and her personality is shining through.
We got a little more information on her background today.

Here is the official story.

At 19:45hrs on February 19, 2008 when Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, a Guard on duty at the entrance of the Center, was in the reception-room he heard a crying voice of a baby. Mr. Hung held a flashlight to inspect the surroundings. When he looked towards the main entrance he saw a bundle of something placed near the main gatepost. He went to the entrance and found a newborn baby laid on the piece of nylon. Mr. Hung brought the baby to the reception-room and informed the people in the tour of duty about the case. After that he held the flashlight to check the outside of the Center's entrance but found no one. Mr. Hung returned to the reception-room. He and the people in the tour of duty made an examination of the baby and found that this was a baby girl of 3.7 kg of weight. She wore 3 shirts (a white elastic one, a yellow woolen one and a white cotton one printed with breeding animal). She wore a white cotton trousers and took a nappy, wearing a white hat with a scarf wrapped round the neck. She was wrapped in a patterned yellow felt blanket.

Within an hour, there was no one coming to the Center to take the baby back.

So we affirm that this is an abandoned baby and make the report with the witness of a resident living near the Center and confirmation of local authorities. We decided to take the day February 19, 2008 as the birthday of the baby and name the child Nguyen Mai Hoa. The baby is transferred to the rearing room of the Center for care.

We think her dates would be fairly close. 3.7 kg is 8.15 pounds. She is about 9 kg now ( 20lbs) and is a perfect fit for the 18mo clothes we brought for her. We will be unable to get home much sooner than we expected, No flights out of here on Thursday and Friday gives us an overnight layover in LA. Hoping to touch down in Chicago Saturday around lunch time.

IT WAS HA LONG WEEKEND

We got up early Saturday to head to an overnight trip to Halong Bay. the van picked us up at 8 am and we started out on the 4 hour drive to Halong. If you are wondering why this little guy is smiling at me, I was because I kept trying to take his picture with his friend and their.......FULL SIZE COW HOGTIED TO THEIR MOPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It is crazy how many mopeds there are here and even crazier how much they haul on them. This is the boat, junk, that we will be staying on. Maia got into the spirit in our onboard room with a little straw hat we bought for her.

We cruised out into the bay and got off the boat to check out a cave up in the islands.
The cave was very long and had a lot of stairs up and down. We hiked for over an hour with Maia sleeping on my shoulder and Laurie carrying the 20 pound diaper bag. Charmain would be proud of our workout. Laurie and Maia got a little downtime to just sit on the beach and enjoy the sand.
They are really having fun together. She is a very good little girl, very easy to take care of and so much fun to be around.
It was a beautiful sunset.
And with night came the pitter patter of little feet. Not Maia, not elves or Riendeer, Rats! After midnight you could hear them scurrying around overhead in the walls, everywhere. Needless to say Laurie could not sleep, she had the lights on and surprise she made sure I was awake to keep her company. When she woke up her hair dryer blew a fuse and when I went to find a crew member the first one I saw was carrying a rat on a long pole trap. Not real impressive.

In the morning I took the opportunity to use a kayak and go through to a hidden bay. This was the only way in or out.

There were some interesting rock formations.
The girls were happy to see me when I got back.

We started our cruise back to Ha Long. It was filled with incredible scenery. We enjoyed a nice lunch on board during our cruise back. Laurie was able to buy some pearls for Maia from one of the crew members. We have been picking up little gifts for her that we will give to her on her Gotcha day anniverseries until she is 21.
We made it back to shore. The crew member said Laurie could pay her when we got to shore. When Laurie went to the ladies room the crew member told me to get on the back of a moped with a young girl to go pay. We zipped off to an ATM. It did not work, off we went down the road full of traffic and busses. Our third ATM finally worked. When we got back the others in the van waiting to ride back to Hanoi were not amused with our little delay.

I wish Little Maia was calling for backup. She did well the first part of the 3+ hour ride back, but had a meltdown with about an hour to go. Our fellow passengers were not impressed. We thought she did pretty well considering this was her first time in a carseat.

It was a fun trip and we will certainly never forget it. But we were very happy to get back to our little motel room and rest peacefully.

AND OUT COMES THE PERSONALITY

Today is a fun day, no appointments, no schedule. We got up early and went for breakfast. Laurie and Maia used the sling Jenna made for us. Maia is getting sillier hour by hour and her personality really came out today.

We walk past this tree everyday on our way somewhere. It is amazing how it has just become part of the architecture of the street.
These trees are really something to see, the look like something out of a horror movie up close with shapes that look like faces in the trunk.

Hanoi has a large billboard counting down the days until the city is 10,000 years old. Only 702 days to go.
We did a little sightseeing down by the lake. Maia did took her morning nap.

We had heard the nannys fed the babies every 3 hours all day and night. Maia has been taking two naps, sometimes on the fly and then going to bed at 8pm and not waking up until 6:30 am. We thought maybe the first night was a fluke, but we are halfway into night 3 and she is sound asleep.
The Wisconsin Dells Department of Public works could use a state of the art paving machine like this. It even came with the optional old man with a piece of wood scraping off the wheels while they roll. Even in Hanoi, people just can not live without their Calvin Klein Jeans.We decided to have a local artist paint a picture of Maia while we were in town. We found a cute little Vietnamese outfit, and the fashion show began. Maia and her mom had a blast making faces at me while I snapped a few photos for the artist. She is the gigliest little pistol we ever have hoped for.

Tomorrow we are going on a overnight stay to Ha Long Bay. It is supposed to be incredibly beautiful. We had hoped to visit the other orphanage or one of the foster homes of some of the children waiting for their parents. The flooding has made that impossible. The silver lining is the news of some of the travel referrals for some of those families.

We will post again after we get back on Sunday.

DAY 3 GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE

Today, Thursday, was a very important day in our adoption process. Although we have had Maia since Tuesday she was really only on loan. Today the Vietnamese government officially recognized that we are her parents and she is our child. We went to a government office in Hanoi with the other two families that accompanied us to the orphanage. There was still flooding outside this building and it very well could have been closed delaying our adoption.

We all went inside into a very small conference room and waited for the official to come in. The director of the orphanage was unable to make it due to the flooding and another staff member came in his place.
This ceremony is called the Giving and Recieving Ceremony and all the adoptions are recorded in a large book we had to sign. We had to promise to take good care of our child and provide yearly updates to the Vietnamese government until she is 18. The lady in the gray sweater represented the Vietnamese government. She gave a speach to us in Vietnamese, and Loa'n from our agency, the lady in white, interpreted for us.

The staff member from the orphanage was a lady we recognized as someone who also worked as a nanny. She took Maia from me and held her the entire time except while she signed, then took her right back again. It makes us realize just what a special child we will have the opportunity to raise, she was definitely special to many of the staff at BaVi.

By handing us this official government document the Vietnamese government and this official is congratulating us as the parents of little Maia.

After the other two families completed their paperwork and offficially recieved their children we stopped for a few photos outside. Maia with her forever Mom and Dad. We are her forever family, the 'adoption' is over, she is ours, we are hers, as real as any family could ever hope to be. We are sure that anyone who is fortunate enough to meet little Maia will never question she was destined to be with us and us with her. She is ours ery bit as much as her big brothers are.

A wonderful moment shared with the other forever families.

The little ladies with their Mothers.

The guys with the ladies who will change our lives, again.

On the way home I saw this guy carrying a water tank on his Moped. Could you imagine calling a plumber and having him show up with your new water heater on the back of his moped. I know Mcclyman Plumbing has a Moped, lets see what happens if gas goes back up to $4 gallon.

After the ceremony we met up with the other families at the Green Tangerine for a little dinner. This French restaraunt was very nice. Laurie and I were pleased to see New Zealand Steak was on the menu, I did not have the heart to tell her it was Kangaroo, Just kidding, it was very good, and saved us from ordering something random in French.

Maia says 'good night' and thank you to everyone following our blog.